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plato would’ve wisely kept the poets out of his republic. We haven’t gone so far. We don’t even seem to be able to keep them out of our most expensive restaurants. They’ve infiltrated everywhere, and you’ll see more of them than you dreamed, for this is Poetry Month. They’ll be bubbling up in hiphop, ranting, praising, raving declaiming — but worst of all, silently eagerly writing.
Bringing forth yet more rhymes. Big blocky prose poets with shoulders like ships. Massive mini-skirted mangirls bellowing like Prometheus. We have willowwisp warrior women, poets of noise. Vowel-only poets, poets writing by lightning, shattered poets driven mad by matter. We have cop poets and rock poets.
Some of them are schoolteachers and bank presidents and many are native peoples. No sector of society is free of the insidious muse. Carping, slamming, the poets bide their time, joined beneath the mind in the vast sibhood of uncollected consciousness which is common to their creed.
You may have observed the progress of their slogans. It began as graffiti — scrawled, illegal, run away from. Now it is all up official-like on the subway. There’s no stopping it. In the time it takes to read this, seven state-funded poets will have begun school visits to win over our finest and our best.
Alas, we have made the drum, we’ve sharpened the pencil, we’ve prepared the air, we’ve lubricated the gullet — now we’ll have to wait and see who expose themselves. Listen for anti-flowery phrases. Listen for the ubiquitous New Yorkese. If someone speaks all deconstructed, check their eyes.
If you are confronted by someone who you think is a poet, it is best not to offer to read their work. If you pass by small clubs and hear from within certain monomaniacal pitches that rarely alter in tone, you may have been exposed to a poetry reading. It is important that you do not infect anyone else.
You must stay away — particularly in April. It started out as Poetry DAY. Now it’s a month. How long before it’s poetry year, poetry decade? How long before it is infinite inescapable poetry always everywhere? Poetry that laughs at the fall. How long before the insidious word completes its long-awaited coup? www.poempainter.com
